The Police Reforms Working Group- Kenya, on 28 November 2023, issued a statement in response to the report of the National Taskforce on Improvement of Terms and Conditions of Service and other reforms for members of the National Police Service and Kenya Prisons Service. They deemed the report welcome, but short on human rights and community policing.
An excerpt of the statement: “PRWG-K lauds the taskforce findings and recommendations concerning policing in Kenya. We agree with the need to transform the NPSC and the NPS leadership and the finding that corruption is endemic within the service. We note that no solution was recommended to eliminate transnationalism and corruption beyond the call for use of technology, abolition of police roadblocks, and restructuring the Traffic Police Unit. This is despite corruption making the police an institution of pain instead of respite to Kenyans. The PRWG-K finds that the report failed to factor in human rights as a central requirement of policing that the police and that needs urgent attention for policing to meet its constitutional mandate to Kenyans. In addition, we commend President Ruto for establishing the taskforce, which has provided an opportunity to examine policing and propose solutions. It is imperative that the recommendations of the taskforce and the PRWG be implemented. For these solutions to work, there must be the political will to empower a service led by competent and visionary leaders decoupled from politics for the first time.”
The Police Reforms Working Group (PRWG Kenya) is a consortium of 21 grassroots, national and international civil society organisations (CSOs) working on police reforms since 2010. We have supported and advocated for police reforms in line with the 2010 Constitution and other laws that aspire to a professional, accountable, and human rights-compliant National Police Service (NSP). We are cognizant of the police reform journey, especially concerning where we came from, where we want to go as a country, and the various processes, institutions and organs created to achieve police reforms.
Please find the statement here:
The PRWG-K finds that the report failed to factor in human rights as a central requirement of policing that the police and that needs urgent attention for policing to meet its constitutional mandate to Kenyans.